My senior year in high school, I was dunking.  My hands were too small to palm a basketball firmly enough, so I had to build up the ability to get high enough for both hands to be above the rim.

Let me step back a bit.  We had a new coach my senior year.  I was also spending half days at high school and the second half at a Laurel Business Institute pursuing an associate degree.  On those days that we had basketball practice right after school, I’d either have to miss practice, or show up really late.

Now, most adults have the student’s best intentions in mind.  Like in soccer, my coach didn’t penalize me for missing practices.  He knew that I wanted to play, and I was the kind of guy that would work extra hard to make up for it in a game.  My basketball coach did not share the same view.  Sometimes, my teammates would agree with me that our coach had something personal against me.

Flash to an early season game at Charleroi.  We’re doing our warm-up lay-up drill and I’m feeling pretty energetic.  All of us are always trying to get as high as we can.  In my mind, I didn’t know that it was considered a technical foul to dunk in warm-ups.  I also didn’t do a flagrant, hanging from the rim, kicking my legs, aggressive, spectacle of a dunk.  I just tipped it in the basket.  The ref didn’t like it though, and immediately blew the whistle.  Everyone was confused.  That’s probably the only pre-game whistle anyone will ever hear.  The other team was awarded 2 foul shots, before the clock started, and they made them both.

Our coach was livid.  At half-time, the locker room “pep talk” included references to everyone having to make up for my mistake.  When we came back at the end of the game, having lost by 2 points (the equivalent of the 2 foul shots)  The coach specifically said we lost the game because of me and even physically pointed at me.

I didn’t get to play that game, and many games after that.  Had I been given the chance to prove my worth, I’m confident my season would have gone a lot better than it had.  I think that coach was one of the first people to confuse me with their ridiculousness.  Logically, without those foul shots, that just ties the game.  Even in practical terms, to say I caused our team to lose the game, without me actually participating in the game, seems wrong if not just simply unfair.

Anyway, I dunked my senior year of high school.  If you don’t believe, go ask the old coach. I bet he blames his short lived coaching career on me dunking.

I’m starting to question memory in dreams.  In some of my more recent dreams, the feeling of being familiar with the dream happens.  Does this mean that I really did dream about that dream before, or is it all part of the fantasy and illusions in dreams?

Recently, I’ve had dreams that I’m in a play or a musical back at my high school.  I have to remember all my lines and dance routines and cues.  Last night’s dream was the actual performance of the play, and I had such a hard time remembering all my lines and parts, but I was very familiar with them.  There was a complicated costume change where I had to wear some sort of Roman soldier chest plate under my dress shirt so that I could make a critical change quick enough.  I remembered rehearsing that part…or did I?

I’m really curious as to whether my dreams are picking up fragments of old dreams and I’m interpreting them as memories.  Or maybe I’m just being fooled into thinking I’ve dreamed about it before.  Broken down, it’s all just chemical and biological reactions.

I’m actually getting a little stressed out about it in my waking life, as well as my dream state.  I’m worried that I’m not creating more unique dreams but I’m stuck on the same recycled concepts.  I’m worried my dream memory is failing and my dreams will not be as fun as they used to.  Maybe my dreams will wind up just being similar to the real life of an old man with Alzheimer’s.  Am I there already?

It’s been a while since I’ve put up a post in the "memories" category.  I was thinking about times I’ve almost died.  There aren’t many, I think, but still something worth sharing.

When I was in high school, I dug up my Uncle Jay’s 250 watt 15" Pevey bass amp from my dad’s barn.  The funny thing about this amp was that it didn’t have a ground wire in it.  It just had a 2 prong plug.  I ended up cutting off the plug since it was damaged and put a new grounded plug on the end, which at least gave me a sense of security that it wasn’t going to come out of the wall.

Later on, my Uncle Kenny gave me my first 4 string base.  IT was a black "series 10" bass.  Nothing special about it, but it did the job.  I had gotten it in my head that I’d like a natural wood finish instead of the black matte, so I got some sand paper and started to go to town on the bass.  This was a lot of work.  When it got time to get around the pickups and bridge, I had to undue the strings.  I had the bass plugged into the amp, and the amp on, just so I could hear the awesome tones as I detuned.

So there’s me, in a damp basement, sitting in a metal chair, next to a 250 watt bass amp, that’s plugged into a surge protector on the floor next to me with a bunch of other devices, and 4 nickel wound, 1/8-1/4 inch diameter bass strings flopping around in my lap.  As luck would have it, something like the alarm clock was barely plugged in to the surge protector, and one of the strings found it way in the gap.  You want to know how I was sure something was wrong?  Because one of the base string starting glowing bright orange.  I jumped out of my seat, which was enough to move the bass string, but after some damage to the surge protector, which I still use today.  Here it is:

I think that counts as almost dying. 

This post is classified under "memories" for those facebook readers that don’t see categories.  I wanted to write down my memory of the day I found out my brother had passed.  Mom – be warned.

Caleb and I slept in what would be called "Uncle Jay’s" room together when we lived at my Grandma’s house.  He slept in the queen bed and I slept on the cot right next to it.  I remember that when I woke up, I used to wake Caleb up, talking to him, or checking to see if he was awake.  I got in trouble once or twice for it.  I don’t remember what day of the week it was, but I remember waking up, and going downstairs, thinking not to wake up Caleb.  As I sat and watched TV at the table and ate breakfast, my mom went upstairs to get Caleb.  Moments later, My mom was yelling, "Mom!"  I saw her carry Caleb down into the living room and put him down on the couch.  A large EMT lady showed up with ambulance a while later.  I’m 8.  I don’t remember any other siblings being home but me.  I remember my dad coming to the back door and telling me to get Pap-pap.  I think there was a little bit of tension with letting my dad into the house, but ultimately, he ended up to being able to come into the kitchen at least.  That’s where I remember holding a 2×3 photo of Caleb and crying in the arms of my dad, saying things like, "Caleb is gone", but I can also remember not really understanding what that meant.  I just felt like that is what I should be doing, as if I was just doing it because that’s what they do on TV or something.

It was Friday, January 26th, 1990.  Caleb was turning 10 on February 9th.  I assume we had the funeral shortly after.  I remember school at Bentleyville Wesleyan was canceled for the funeral.  I saw a lot of people at the funeral.  I remember Uncle Kenny playing a song he wrote and leaving a casette tape in Caleb’s casket.  I want to say I even put in one of his wood cars.  The weird memory is that I remember Jim Henson dying around the same time, and images of all the Sesame street characters showing up at his funeral, and thinking about those same characters showing up at Caleb’s.  Jim Henson didn’t die until May 16th, but I guess the memories were still fresh enough in my head to make that imprint, or it’s been so long that they just seem to overlap.  I remember Jesse and Uncle Tom coming up.  Honestly, I’ve had quite a few funerals, most at the same exact place, so a lot of the memories I have in my head right now, are bluring together, so I’ll stick to the ones I’m sure of…at least, as sure as my memory let’s me believe.

As I walk down Memory Lane,
The past runs like a river behind me.
Over the cliff, down the steep hill,
Trees protect us from falling back down.
They block the clear view of the river,
As mental scars block the pain of memories.
If we descend down the cliff of time passed,
And lose our footing, our bodies become like a plinko chip
Tumbling down, but never knowing where we’ll stop.
Some have made it down without a bruise.
Some have even taken out a tree or two.
Though you feel so close to all the river from above,
The view is always better from the top.
Though you think you’ll make it down just fine,
You’ll never make it back up to where you were.
Where you are. Where I am. Where we are.
As I walk further from the cliff’s view,
I look back, and wonder where I’d be without you.
Probably lost, injured, and hungry, somewhere in that valley
Foolishly looking for something familiar, but not knowing what.
With my hands hidden from the cold in my pocket,
I face the future, and begin walking.
Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.
Left foot, right foot…

1.  What’s the cutest of the small, furry animals?

 - The Slow Loris is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.  EVAR.  They move so slowly and they’re so scared and small. 

2.  What predator impresses you the most?

 - The Angler fish.  Those things are nuts.

3.  After which animal will you name your professional sports team?

 - That’s a good question that I keep putting off.  I know I am going to have to answer it soon enough, but I just haven’t had the time to devote the thought to it recently.  I’m going to have to come back to it, but for now, I’ll say the hounds because i’d want something to reflect a team.

4.  What’s an unusual animal that you know a little something about?

 - The liger, of course.  It’s not just something in Napoleon Dynamite.  These things are real.  The biggest cats in the world and they came from forcing a lion to impregnate a tiger. 

5.  Your high school probably had some kind of mascot or symbol, but based on your memories of it, what animal should REALLY have been the emblem?

- We were the trojans.  As for what animal we should have been…nothing migratory, that’s for sure, nothing exciting…we’ll go with the endangered pandas.

These questions brought to you by Friday5.org

Three years ago today, around 2pm, I watched the color from my dad’s face dissappear.  it was a Monday.  I held his left hand in my left hand.  I almost got sick at how he changed colors so fast and drastically.  J’aime, Serah, and Robbie were in the room too, but I’m not sure which ones were watching too.  A week before, almost to the hour, he found out he had a brain tumor.  He went into surgery that Friday, and never woke up afterward.

I’m going to recount the first night I went to see my dad, but only what I directly experience, and only what happened that night. 

.J’aime had called me from the hospital that Tuesday before and said that daddy wanted to talk to me.  I talked to him briefly and said that i’d come down to see him.  I didn’t right away.  It wasn’t until a day later when J’aime called me and said she needed me to come down right away that i actually went down.  I ran down to Mercy hospital since it was only a mile or so from my apartment.  Turns out, Robbie was trying to marry my dad, and that was a lot of emotion, at a very emotional time.

I got tried to get some alone time with my dad to talk about whether or not he wanted this.  The tumor had been causing him to forgot things and say things that didn’t make sense, and he just seemed out of it.  I said, "So, i hear something about you and robbie getting married, do you want that to happen?"  He immediately went from a dopey happy face to an embarrassed child’s face that knows he did something wrong.  He slumped down a little and looked away and said, "Oh.  I don’t know."  I only had a minute or so before some guy that knew daddy came in and sat down to interrupt us.  then Sarah Slavic came in too.  I didn’t get what time I wanted, but it was enough for me to know that it was out of the question to let talks of marriage continue.

Robbie had gathered all her relatives in the chapel downstairs.  They came with a ring and they were expecting a cermony.  I hadn’t talked to her family for quite a few years, but I always loved and missed them.  Robbie’s brother-in-law, Scott, was one of them that I felt I could really connect with because he just had a very easy going personality and was religious.  J’aime and I asked Scott if we could talk to him about what’s going to happen.  The 3 of us went into a room and talked very calmly about it.  J’aime and I said that there was no reason to rush this decision, they’ve had 7 years to get married and they never were able to comit to eachother then.  We said that he is not in any state of mind to make such a life changing decision, that not only affects him but everyone, ESPECIALLY if he died.  Scott said that we shouldn’t deny Robbie the chance to marry someone that she loved.  We failed to see eye to eye on the topic, which was shocking to J’aime and I because of how obvious the right choice seemed.

Robbie called for a Catholic priest she had been familiar with to marry them.  The priest wanted to meet with my dad before hand, as he always did, to make sure the two people want to unite.  As he did that, we called my dad’s best friend, Bruce, and let him know to come down.  I called my step-grand father, an attorney, and asked him what we’re allowed to do legally to stop this, or if we can’t what are we looking at in terms of the estate, life insurance, and anything else if my father dies and they are married.  It wasn’t pretty.  (but honestly, neither is what ended up happening anyway)

The priest came out and said that my father seemed very lucid but that my dad simply seemed like he didnt know if he wanted to marry Robbie, and on that ground, he wouldn’t marrry them.  Honestly, we all chuckled a bit at the relieve because the priest called my dad lucid.  As Robbie went to tell her family there would be no wedding, Serah and I went in with my dad.  This is where "Mr. Lucid" pointed to his IV and asked me if I knew what was in it.  I think i said something along the lines of, "the good stuff, I’m sure."  He said, and I’ll try to quote this as best as I can, "The mon valley express way.  they point it in there and it flows from here (points to bag) to here (points to forearm).  heh, i’m tearfully laughing here…wow dad, you really loved that express way.

A few minutes later, we were watching something on the TV and it hinted the mentioning of this dutch colony in the middle of the state somewhere.  For the life of me I can’t remember the name of it now.  But as he talked about it, I remembered going there as a kid in kindergarten.  I remember seeing their bread ovens.  I remember riding on the bus there.  I remember putting the wood bar that held pales of cow milk on either end on my shoulders.  A rush of these childhood memories came to me, that I don’t think i ever thought about until that moment.  It was quite overwhelming and refreshing, that these memories were coming to me, but not only that, but that my dad was reconnecting me to them.  how Ironic, the man that forced me to block out so much of my childhood was helping me remember some. 

When it came time to leave, everyone hugged daddy and told him that they loved him.  I wasn’t ready for that, because I expected him to come through that surgery fine, and I didn’t want him to think this was an open door to my life once he got better.  I waiting until last and just smiled at him and said, "hey, take care of yourself, I’ll see you this weekend when you get out." 

wow.  I think i see a trend going on here.  i woke up at almost 4:15am from this dream.  I had gone to bed about 4 am last night and slept until 5:30, and went to bed around 1am.  I’ll have to start recording the times and such of these dreams.  I’m going to leave out a few details to keep the authenticity of the dream; ie there were a few people in the dream that shouldn’t have been, but they weren’t family and they were distracting from the plot.  for reference sake though, I punched andrew bonnell in the face for giving me his AOL screenname so that I could contact him when i woke up.  but wow, i just realized something…I’ll come back to this after i tell the dream…

So deirdre and I are driving around in a truck of sorts, and we drive by a store called SEKI and they only sell pepsi products.  not important at all, but I’m leaving it in there because it’s weird.  anyway, we were talking, she gets out, next thing i know is i’m in the estate driveway facing the road in a tractor pulling a cart, I loop to the right in the yard and come back around to drive behind the house and i look to the right where there is a lone pine tree and Dante is tied to it barking.  I park the tractor and run over to pet him and play around with him.  Someone else comes over, a young guy, I recognize him, but now that i woke up i can’t remember who he is.  But seeing him and dante confirmed to me that this was a dream, and I am visiting the dead.  I said, "so this is really afterlife i’m visiting, isn’t it?" and he just looked like he wasn’t allowed to confirm that to me.  Then I let Dante off the chain and walk inside the house with him up to the top left bedroom where there is a large bed in it’s normal spot and serah and J’aime are there.  This is where we’re talking with some guy and we get on the conversation of being able to talk to everyone there when I wake up.  He says that he has AOL IM and that if I sent him a message, he’d respond.  And so I’m l said, "well, i need to know your screenname"  and i was feeling stressed to get this information before I woke up.  And he said something like "oh well, you just message me and you’ll be good" and when he said that, I knew he was lying to me about having messenger at all.  this is where he is now andrew bonnell and i punch him in the face and yell at him for not being legit with me on an important topic and wasting my time.  j’aime and serah cool things down and we talk a little more about how this place is the afterlife.  We know that my dad is outside working on something.

Then I realize with nervous excitement, "Guys, this means that Barney (my grandfather) is probably out in the barn…do you want to go see him??"  J’aime seemed more excited than serah, but we decide we’ll go.  So we are walking downstairs talking about what he’ll be like and I start to get blurry vision, like i’m about to wake up, but i consciously force myself back to sleep.  When we turn the corner into the dining room, dante had followed us, and I note to serah how great it is to see dante.  I can actuall feel him.  I said how firm he feels and how short his hair is, just as I remember him.  I don’t know how to express how real this dream is besides that.  we are going to walk out the addition door, and when we get in the addition, it’s been worked on.  There’s a lot of work to be done, but all the walls are finished and there’s a stairway down to the basement.  I can see through it that there’s a light on downstairs, and I get the feeling that someone is down there…but I don’t find out…I fear that it was (grandmother’s mother? aunt? i forget), who hung herself in the basement.  Anyway, it’s obvious that my dad had been working on the place.  We go out on the deck and can see my dad over in the park working.  I ask Serah and J’aime if they want to spend anytime with him.  J’aime just looks at Serah as if it’s up to her and Serah says that she’d rather not.  So we walk down and I yell for my dad, thinking that he should introduce us, but Serah shows resistance, so I yell back nevermind.  It’s funny how common place it seems that we’re there.  Anyway, I step into the barn, and I am definitely a little scared as to what I’ll find, the lights are all on, the pocket door to the main area is shut and i loudly say, "Hello?"  Then I hear some feet on the gravel outside, and I turn and catch a glimpse of him before he turns quickly away out of shock and says, "Oh my goodness, Josh?!" as if he’s embarrassed.  He turns back around, big smile on his face, and kind of chuckles out of disbelief that we’re there.  He looks a lot like the pictures of him being old, grey hair and kinda fat.  He’s sweating and dirty like he’s been working, has a white baseball hat on that he takes off to meet us and he’s wearing some reddish over alls.  So we just start talking about how he looks alot like i thought he would, and how i always thought he looked so much different in pictures of him old vs him young.  My dad comes over as we talk by the stone wall infront of the barn.  Then, my dad’s friend Bruce shows up there too, and we’re talking as if he knows about visiting here all the time too.  Then i mention to Barney about how it seems that all hall men die around their 50s, and that uncle kenny and I were trying to remember how everyone had died.  He told me as far back as his grandfather that all died around then.  I don’t remember the reasons why.  I then asked him if there were any women, and he said there was one, and he goes to get like a genealogy book, but I never get to see it before I wake up.

So, the thing i just realized…I had just emailed serah today asking if she had any memories of caleb being normal, because I do not.  I wonder if i’m unable to dream about caleb being normal because I don’t have those visions in my head, so i replace him with other people that are around his age, like the guy outside with dante and andrew bonnell.  Then i remember from the movie "What dreams may come" that cuba gooding Jr was a doctor in robin william’s life, but he’s really his son.  And I’ll admit, that I have thought of andrew bonnell as a relationship i’d have with caleb.  Not that andrew and I even talk, but just that he’s around the same age and we get along pretty well.  With that, it’s an easier fit that Caleb is in these dreams too, and I did have the sense that he was always there, but as i reflect back, i can’t remember him being there.

I have such an urge to email serah and J’aime and see what they dreamed about last night, but I’m a little more rational than to think they had the same dream.  Wouldn’t that be messed up?

New category!  sometimes weird memories pop into my head that are usually pretty funny or very truth telling of what really happened.  I’ve had 2 of these recently, but for the life of me I can’t remember what they were.  I’ll try to keep this category geared towards entertaining stories.  I can see how I could really open up a can of worms with some of the truth-telling stories, but it’s all in the past, so everyone should have moved on by now…right? …right…

When I was 14-16, I ran away from my dad’s house to my mom’s house at least twice.  The two houses are about 5 miles or so away from eachother.  One of the times, I think the second time, I took off walking while no one was paying attention to me after my dad had accused me of purposefully breaking a push mower so that I didnt have to cut grass.  About 30 minutes into my walk, my dad caught on and got into his big red 12 passenger van in search of me.  Dude was manic.  He pulled up next to me with this Jack Nicholson look straight out of "The Shining" saying, "Get in the van, Josh, get in."  It was a very narrow road with no shoulder, and as cars would come up behind him, he’d have to drive ahead and turn around somewhere and come back in the other direction in pursuit of me.  At some points, I was sure he was going to come up behind me and hit me with the van.  After the 2nd time of him turning around, and see how much time that bought me, I ended up crossing to the other side of the road while he was turning around, forcing him to do his little turn around bit every time.  He probably made 4 or 5 passes before I got smart and ducked into a family friend’s house.  The Sanders house.  They were perplexed to see me show up at their house at all, let alone in grass stained shoes and jeans, as if I was just mowing their lawn…I was a little out of breath from the sprint into their house so that my dad didn’t see where i went.  I came up with a story that I was just out for a run, and since it looked like it was going to ran soon (Thank God) I said that I was wondering if i could use their phone to call my mother to pick me up.  Thank God again that she was home.  That ~10-15 minutes spent in their house was mind-racking.  Mr. Sanders was a pastor, and not one of those pastors that like to drink beer and watch football and do marathons while listening to the latest foo fighters album….and I just lied to his face.  And his whole family.  He had 2 daughters that I think had crushes on me, and I actually got along pretty well as friends with the older one, but making small talk there, with all of their family just standing around me, knowing my dad could kick in the door at any second screaming "GET BACK TO WORK" was messed up.  Mommy to the rescue!